Saturday, April 14, 2012

Several years ago I made a small faux Talavera pottery frog necklace from "Kato Liquid Polyclay" that had been inspired by a much larger authentic and very colorful Talavera pottery frog that sits on our back fence. The frog in the old necklace sat on a black speckled faux stone.

Faux Talavera pottery frog necklace pendant.

However, though I'd tried many revisions to the piece over the years it never seemed quite "right", so I never sold it and eventually banished it to shadowy corner of my studio. I'd more or less forgotten about the frog, (nicknamed Raulito at the time), until I happened to mention him to Chrissie, an enthusiastic and talented new PC friend at the Delphi Polymer Clay Central Discussion Forum when she asked about making molds for use with polymer clay. Yesterday, after looking at the piece again with with fresh eyes I realized that perhaps he just needed a different kind of perch, perhaps a lily pad. Meet the new and improved Sr. Raulito Rana de Talavera who sleepily sits upon his bright green lily pad throne, majestically surveying his domain.

To read the blog post about the making the FIRST polymer clay frog on the rock please click here:Faux Talavera Pottery FrogChanges, adjustments, corrections, evolution,............this week as I gave my studio a spring cleaning I spent some pleasant time looking at the 15 years worth of poly clay prototypes tacked up on the 5 large midnight blue velvet covered bulletin boards that make up my display area. I found it interesting to re-visit my older pieces and note the evolution of style and the changes that have occurred to some of my designs over the years. I'm sometimes frustrated because I can have an annoying tendency to be quite resistant to change (especially so, when the changes involve polymer clay companies making changes to their formulas!). Yet, one's reaction to change and the act of creatively working out solutions is how life lessons are learned. The polymer clay learning curve,............... a metaphor for life.